


Retail Therapy

by Clea2011



Category: Primeval
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-29
Updated: 2015-04-29
Packaged: 2018-03-26 08:41:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3844432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clea2011/pseuds/Clea2011
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Becker hated shopping.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Retail Therapy

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Trope Bingo square 'Retail Therapy' and Primeval Denial bingo square 'Priceless'

Becker hated shopping.

He particularly hated clothes shopping, on a Saturday morning when the shops were horrendously crowded. He hated sitting on the seats left outside changing rooms with all the other sad saps who’d been dragged along for Saturday morning shopping hell. He’d never even noticed such things existed (the seats or the sad saps) before he’d started dating Jess. Now he was all too familiar with the Sad Sap Seats and what they represented. He found a space between a kid completely absorbed in his phone (like that absolved him of Sad Sap status, Becker thought) and a middle aged man who kept looking at his watch and glancing towards the door.

To be fair, Jess had quickly noticed that he wasn’t enjoying the whole shopping experience and they very rarely did this sort of thing. (The grumpy expression, frequent querying whether it was lunchtime yet and generally sulking a lot by the third shop had done the trick nicely. She was quite well-trained, he thought smugly.)

They wouldn’t even have had to go shopping if that idiot driver in front of him hadn’t suddenly decided to stop in the middle of the road. Becker had to brake sharply and Jess had sloshed her coffee all down her front. True, she shouldn’t really have been drinking it in the car but they’d left early to miss the traffic, and Jess had _needed_ that coffee. So they’d had to stop as soon as they’d got out of London and now they were _clothes shopping._ On a Saturday morning. Apparently this was more efficient than trying to find somewhere to change and disturbing the carefully-packed contents of her suitcase, although surely there were enough spare clothes in there.

At least it was going to be quick, Jess had grabbed a replacement top surprisingly fast and headed straight to the changing rooms. She wanted to be off on their little mini-break to the New Forest as much as he did. Well… he looked around at the ever-increasing number of shoppers… perhaps not _quite_ as much as he did.

“This is the fourth shop already,” the Sad Sap next to him grumbled. As the other occupant of the Seats was still engrossed in his phone, Becker supposed the man must be talking to him.

“We’re only doing the one,” Becker told him, still feeling a little smug about the training. “Emergency trip, spilled coffee. She’s well-trained.”

The man laughed. “Oh, you fell for that one, did you? You know there’s a sale on in the one next door? We were there when it opened this morning. Scary stuff. Turn left when you leave here, maybe yours won’t see it.”

Becker didn’t fall for anything, and was about to tell the man as much. Jess was coming out of the changing room, wearing the new top so he had to be careful what he said. But at that moment, from the doorway of the shop came an excited cry.

“Look Mummy! There’s a dinosaur!”

Becker’s heart froze. He had his Mossberg in the car, and that was just outside. Hopefully he could reach it in time.

“Stay here!” he ordered as he leapt to his feet and raced outside…

…and was faced with someone in a huge purple dinosaur costume who pushed a leaflet into his hand and waddled on down the street.

Becker glanced back. The Sad Sap Seats man was looking at him in amusement, and there would probably be some snarky remark if he went back to sit down. Jess, thankfully, was already at the till, getting the assistant to scan the garment while she was still wearing it. They were spending far too much time talking about the coffee-stained blouse that was going into one of those posh store bags with rope handles and sharp corners. Well, he wasn’t going back in to be mocked.

As it turned out, going back in wasn’t necessary. Jess got as far as the doorway, then peeked out.

“Is it safe?” she asked, looking far too amused.

“It’s not as if it’s an unusual thing to happen,” Becker grumbled. He hated shopping.

“No. It was very brave,” Jess agreed. She still had that hint of a smirk on her face as she grabbed the leaflet. “Oh! Dino-Burgers has opened today. Were you hungry?”

“Yes.” Well, it was as good an excuse as any.

“Must be all that _training_ …” Jess mused as she headed for the car.

Becker winced, knowing he was in trouble. He was never, ever sitting on those seats again. They were far too close to the cubicles. If he didn’t want the entire ARC to know he’d chased after a fake purple dinosaur person he was going to have to do some serious making up. He quickly went to open the door for her. That usually helped.

“Yes… Why don’t you look out for somewhere for lunch… my treat, of course,”

“Hmmm…” Jess settled herself into the passenger seat and got her phone out as soon as he’d closed the door. Damn. He hurried round to the driver’s side.

“Dinner too, obviously,” he added.

“Thank you.” Jess was tapping something into her phone.

“What are you doing?” he asked warily. “Not texting Matt?”

“Checking Twitter for any dinosaur hunter sightings. You’re safe so far,” she added cheerily. “And we’ll see how you behave over the weekend as to what I say to Matt on Monday. So,” she sat back, beaming far too widely at him, “do tell me about these training methods, Becker…”

Yes, he was in big trouble…

Becker really hated shopping.

 


End file.
